I need some genius tips for my Do-A-Dot markers. My toddler chewed off all the sponge tips of our Do-A-Dot markers! Those suckers are expensive so I can’t throw them out!!
I thought about squeezing the ink out to paint with but I really want to keep the dotting. Any suggestions?
Also, what is something super neat that you do in your homeschooling that I need to know about?
I’ll go first. When my toddler was younger she would use the low windowsill to hoist her self up onto my desk. I put one of those wooden baby gates in the window to stop her. Later I used zip ties to brace a pocket chart onto the baby gate. It works great! (I have two long windows in my school room lacking wall space). I love zip ties.
If I knew how to make my photos smaller I would post a pic, but I don’t know how to shrink photos.
They make envelope sealers (sponge plus bottle) that you add water to, you might be able to put the do a dot paint in those to make them work. However, I bought mine at the dollar store. I only bought three colors so it didn’t cost much at all.
Another idea might be to take a cheep sponge and cut it into a small circle. Than your kids can just dip that in paint to make the dots. I’m not sure if that helps too much though, the main advantage of the markers (in my opinion anyways!) is that they aren’t as messy as paint.
My cool idea for homeschooling isn’t a wiz-bang original. I found it somewhere online. It drives me crazy to have homeschool posters and things up in my dining room where we do school. It’s also where guests hang out and its completely open to the living room too. So to hide the clutter, I took over one of our closets. When it’s closed you don’t see anything but open the door and you see all of our calendar time things as well as all of my homeschool supplies neatly tucked away. When we’re working, I just leave the closet open for reference.
My daughter loves puzzles. She has accumulated about 70. We live in a small apartment and if left in the boxes, would take up a lot of space. I put each in a zip lock bag with the picture ot the puzzle cut from the box. Then I numbered each puzzle. I wrote the number on the bag along with the number of pieces for each. Then I wrote the corresponding number on each puzzle piece. She can fit most of her puzzles in a medium sized basket. If she finds a piece, she just needs to look at the number on the back and put it in the correct bag. I ask her to count the pieces before putting her puzzle away and checking that against the amount on her bag.
Last year was my first year homeschooling & a veteran homeschooler friend of mine was trying to figure out what to do with all of her (three kids’) projects. When I started doing some big projects like the erupting volcano or holiday baking treats or the “archeological mummy dig,” I started taking pictures before, during & after & then at the end of the year I made a homeschool yearbook through Snapfish. Once I have a lot of these projects captured & recorded on film for posterity, I don’t feel so badly about (discreetly at times) throwing them out. We enjoy going through our year this way & I don’t have to store tons of stuff (although I do save a few things). My mom lives a couple time zones away & even ordered a book for herself.
